An effective term paper (or "research paper") should include the following elements:

(1) Title: A clear, succinct title that is pertinent to the subject of the paper.

(2) Topic paragraph: What is the paper about? What is its purpose or thesis, and how will this purpose be achieved (the methodology)?

(3) Presentation of the subject matter: The narrative or factual foundation of the paper that is the basis for whatever conclusions are drawn about the subject.

(4) Interpretation of the facts or data: The conceptual framework or significance of the subject beyond the bare narrative of fact.

(5) Concluding paragraph: What does it all mean?

(6) Citations of sources: Footnotes, endnotes, or explicit references within the text to the sources used and any and all direct quotations or paraphrases of source material. The object of a citation is to allow the reader to locate precisely the source in question.

(7) Bibliography: A list of sources consulted for the paper in alphabetical order by author's surname. The following is the typical correct style for bibliographic entries, including punctuation. Italics indicates parts that should be underlined or in italics; quotation marks indicate parts that should be enclosed in quotation marks:

BOOK: Author's last name, first name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, date of publication.

ARTICLE: Author's last name, first name. "Title of article," Title of book or periodical in which article appears (publication data as above)[if book, or] vol. no., issue no. (date of publication)[if article], page nos. of article in publication.

WARNING ON PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism is the act of appropriating another's work as one's own. It is a serious form of dishonesty and discovery of any plagiary will be the basis for immediate dismissal of the student from the course.

Plagiarism includes representing words (quotations) or ideas as one's own by failing to attribute them to their proper source, or submitting work done by another as one's own. Normally, facts and ideas in common use and widely recognized need not be cited or attributed to a source. For instance, the following statements should not be supported by a citation to a source:

"Columbus thought he had reached Asia in 1492."

"The Chinese Revolution of 1911 failed to achieve many of its goals."

Possessive: Misuse of apostrophe, e.g. it's, its; 1920's, 1920s.

Plural form: Confusion of plural with possessive form, e.g. "Americans" is plural: "American's" is singular possessive; "Americans'" is plural possessive; Chinese is singular or plural ("a Chinese", "the Chinese").

Capitalization: Inappropriate use of capital letters. Capitalize the first word of a sentence and of all proper nouns.

Punctuation: Misuse of comma, semicolon, and colon to separate phrases, clauses, parts of a sentence, or items in a series.

Agreement: Words and references within a sentence must be consistent in number, gender, and tense.

Sentence: Incomplete sentence, sentence fragment, run-on sentence. Normally, sentences must include a subject, a verb, and an object or object.

foreign words/terms: Underline or italicize foreign language terms, but not proper names. Common foreign terms need not be underlined, depending on the context: e.g. samurai, nirvana, laissez-faire, coup d'etat.

If you do not know what a noun, a verb, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, etc., is, go back to square one; do not take this course! If you have doubts about your command of gammer and style, a very good, brief guide is William Strunk, Jr. & E. B. White, The Elements of Style. Much more complete, but also succinct, is Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.